The 'Guardians of the Galaxy' director says 'Groot is dead' and that Baby Groot is his son

Turns out Baby Groot is the son of the grown Groot that was in the first "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie.

Director James Gunn revealed this on Twitter Tuesday.

Hold on for this one!

"Guardians of the Galaxy" franchise director James Gunn has always been heavily involved in the social media chatter surrounding his contribution to the Marvel Studios empire. So it wasn't a surprise when he jumped into the conversation when a tweet asking you to choose between saving Groot, one of the characters from "Guardians," or a Porg, the lovable creatures in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," started making the rounds on Tuesday.

Gunn launched into a back-and-forth on this with "Entertainment Tonight" producer and host Ash Crossan, who was on the side of saving the Porg. Gunn made the case that Groot is an "advanced lifeform" while Porgs are just animals (or, as he later put it, "penguins").

Then later in the thread, Gunn tweeted this bombshell: Baby Groot, featured in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2," is not the same Groot from the first movie, who sacrificed himself to save his friends in the ending.

Baby Groot is his son!

We look forward to more explanation by Gunn, because the fans of Marvel are not going to rest until he clarifies this tweet.

Many people, including the team at Business Insider, believed that Baby Groot was a piece of Groot from the first movie, and was just growing in size all over again. At the end of "Vol. 2," Baby Groot had grown up to become Teen Groot. We'll see what size he is when he appears in "Avengers: Infinity War" in May with the rest of the Guardians.